Banishing Nightmares
by Petal Dust
Summary: Tifa's been having nightmares that are really taking a toll on her, and Cloud has no idea how to help. Until one night when she resorts to drinking and he discovers what's been plaguing her...Now what can he do to fix things? Cloti, one-shot, post-AC.


**A/N:** My first Cloti fanfic! Yay! And my first really romantic fic, I suppose. I went into it with just the basic idea of Tifa having nightmares, getting a little drunk, and Cloud comforting her, but it ended up being pretty long...for me, anyway. xD It starts out a bit angsty and ends a bit fluffy, but I hope you enjoy it, and I'd love to hear what you think. =)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and its characters belong to Square Enix, not me.

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><p>Cloud hated feeling this powerless.<p>

There was something wrong with Tifa, something that was stealing her sleep, sapping her spirits, eating away at her, and he had no idea what. Dark circles appeared beneath her eyes. He would wake up during the night to the sound of sobbing, rush to kneel beside her bed and gently shake her awake, and then her eyes would fly open and stare into his and there would be such bottomless pain in them that his stomach knotted up like tangled wire. But in the breadth of a second, it would be gone. She erased the vulnerability from her expression and became the strong Tifa again. Unbreakable. Stubborn. He would ask her what was wrong, if she'd had a bad dream, but she'd just shake her head and order him to go back to sleep because he "needed it more" than she did since he had to "work so hard".

Cloud thought that was ridiculous. Sure, he had to run deliveries, and yeah, maybe that drained a lot of energy. But she worked hard too. She ran the bar late into the night, sometimes later than she really needed to, sometimes serving hordes of customers on weekends. He didn't know how she did it. He'd watched her put up with all kinds of crap from dirty men that had probably pissed themselves from all the alcohol they guzzled down and he wouldn't have minded shoving those glossy brown beer bottles down their throats, might even have smiled doing it, but he didn't because Tifa insisted on not scaring anyone away as long as they paid.

She just kept working hard, despite whatever it was that was devouring her sleep. And it was only a matter of time before she snapped.

Now Cloud knew it had finally happened as he pulled up to _7th Heaven_ in the early hours of the morning; he'd been working even later than usual the past few days. He immediately found it strange that the lights were still on, dim and yellow behind the "Sorry, we're closed" sign hanging in the window. As soon as he stepped through the door there was a flash of pink ribbon and brown hair and then small arms were wrapped around his leg, a face wet with tears buried in rough material. He looked down to see Marlene. She tightened her grip, her shoulders shaking as she fought back sobs.

"Please, Cloud," she pleaded, her voice muffled and trembling. "Please help her, _please_. Me and Denzel don't know what to do."

He placed what he hoped was a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She slowly stepped away, sniffling a little, and he raised his eyes to look around the room. Denzel stood beside the bar counter, one hand clutching the dark wooden edge as he gazed at Cloud with worry etched across his face.

"Where is she?" Cloud inquired softly.

Denzel tilted his head to the space behind the bar, moving out of the way when Cloud strode forward. He could smell the alcohol before he saw it; it hit his mako-enhanced senses like a blast of hot air, coated the back of his throat. As he rounded the bar those damn glossy brown bottles came into view, strewn over the floor, gleaming malignantly in the yellow glow. Some were still dripping amber liquid. Cloud shook his head in disbelief, his brow furrowing as his blue eyes swept across the bottles.

_Why would Tifa do this?_

The question kept repeating in his head over and over again and he didn't have an answer. She hadn't been herself lately, okay, but no matter what happened she was always supposed to be the embodiment of hope and warmth and willpower and he had seen her take wounds that would kill ordinary people with a grit of her teeth and a determined _I'll get through it_. She always got through it. What would make her do this? What was the monster that was tearing her apart from the inside out?

He felt his breath catch when he saw her. He'd never seen her look so broken and he wished he'd never had to. She sat crumpled against the side of the bar, her head pressed against the wood, bare slim legs slipping out from under a loose and wrinkled gray t-shirt. Her hair was wet from a shower and a bottle gleamed in her hand. For a moment, he couldn't move. Tifa raised her head slowly and met his gaze with unfocused dark eyes. It was like she was staring out at him from miles away, trying to make him out through the haze of alcohol in her mind and the dripping strands of dark hair plastered to her skin. He crouched down beside her. His eyebrows drew together in concern as he searched her face. She just stared back at him.

"Tifa," he murmured, reaching up to brush some of her wet hair off of her forehead. He wanted to say more, ask more, but he'd never gotten along well with words and none came to him now. Some spark of recognition appeared in her expression as she looked at him. Her eyes widened and her lips moved to form his name but she could only mouth it, no sound coming out.

"She'll be okay, won't she, Cloud?" Denzel asked, his voice hopeful but betraying a hint of fear. Both children stood gazing down at Tifa in sadness, dismayed at seeing someone who they'd always looked up to as being so strong reduced to a state of such hopelessness. Cloud gave a small nod and glanced around at the bottles. There wasn't actually too many of them.

"Yeah. She didn't drink that much," he assured the kids, then turned to them and spoke in a sterner voice. "It's late. You two should go to bed."

Neither of them looked happy to hear that. Denzel opened his mouth to protest, but Cloud spoke again, softening his voice once more.

"She'll be okay. Really."

Denzel hesitated before giving a reluctant nod, taking Marlene's hand, and the two headed for the stairs. Cloud watched them go and turned back to Tifa. She was still staring at him with wide eyes. The bottle slipped from her fingers with a soft clatter, muted by the wooden floor.

Then she reached a hand to his face. The motion caught him off-guard and he froze up as warm, damp fingertips slid down his cheek. His blue gaze stayed fixed on her while her eyes roamed over his features in an almost child-like fascination, her lips parting slightly, her fingers trailing over his face and around the shape of his mouth and along his jaw to the hollow beneath his ear where they came to rest. He exhaled. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He could see in her eyes now that it must've been a while since she stopped drinking; she was a little out of it, but the alcoholic haze seemed to be lifting somewhat. He still doubted it'd be easy for her to get up the stairs.

So he slid one hand beneath her legs, using the other to support her back as he carefully picked her up and began to carry her up the steps. The hand that had been resting under his ear glided down so her arms could twine around his neck. All at once his senses were overwhelmed with her - the feel of her bare skin beneath his ungloved hand and at the bend of his neck, the tickle of her wet hair against his arm, sweet shower smells layering in an untamed blend of wild orchids and jasmine and sandalwood and lavender all mixing with the faint tang of alcohol, and for a split second the world spun right before his eyes. He had to pause on the stairs for a moment before continuing into the dark hallway. His gaze darted to the kids' bedroom to make sure they really had gone to bed.

"Cloud," Tifa breathed, so quietly that he barely heard her. Her hands slid over his shoulders, grabbing at the woven material of his shirt. He stopped and looked down at her. She just stared at the fabric clutched in her fingers.

"Do you...wanna walk on your own?" he asked, confused by her behavior.

She didn't respond, so he continued to carry her into her bedroom. The door fell closed behind him. City lights glowed outside the window, providing the only illumination. Before Cloud could move another step he found himself frozen again as one of Tifa's hands moved, her fingertips slipping over the ridges of the zipper in his shirt, pausing over the exposed skin at the center of his collarbone. She turned her gaze up to his face. Her dark eyes were watery.

"Cloud," she whispered his name a second time, her grip tightening on his shirt. "You...I thought..."

His heart clenched at the rare frailty she was showing in her slight drunken stupor. Without really thinking about it, he closed his own fingers around the hand at his collarbone. She turned her face into his shoulder, her voice a bit muffled and slurred as she spoke.

"I thought you were _gone_, Cloud." Her body tensed. "Gone. Forever and ever."

"I'm sorry," he murmured in reply. Sorry for being late, sorry for worrying her. It was all he could think of to say. Suddenly she snaked both her arms around his neck again, lifted herself slightly to look at him at eye-level. There was something akin to anger in her expression.

"You don't get it," she stated roughly, dark eyes burning. Her hands fisted and softly hit his back once in frustration. "You just don't _get it. _You were gone for so long. So damn _long, _Cloud. You don't know...you could never even..." She lost her words. The anger started to fade from her eyes and her hands unclenched. She just stared at him again, emanating pain and melancholy and compassion all at the same time. That's when Cloud understood. That familiar feeling of his stomach turning to tangled wire came back and his heart sank as he realized it.

It was him. He was the monster who was stealing her sleep, breaking her spirit, eating away at her conscience. When he fell victim to geostigma he left too suddenly and too completely and too long, hid everything from her, never let her know he was okay. It hurt her more than he'd thought. He was the demon haunting her dreams and making her sob in her sleep and putting dark circles beneath her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Tifa," he said again, quietly but with utter sincerity. Something like grudging forgiveness surfaced in her expression, but her eyes kept searching his face like she expected him to disappear at any second. She released a sad sigh. Her breath was warm and bittersweet against his mouth. Her fingers brushed over the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck, ran slowly upwards through the short hair on the back of his head, against the direction that it grew. The sensation sent a shiver down his spine. She opened her mouth slightly, seemed to consider saying something.

"When...when I sleep," she whispered, then paused, swallowed. Cloud wasn't sure if it was intoxication or raw emotion or both, but whatever it was it made her start stumbling over words as they flooded out like water breaking a dam.

"When I sleep I dream that you're walking towards me, and you're hurt so bad, and I can't move and there's nothing I can do to help you and sometimes, sometimes I have to watch. I have to..." She shook her head, eyes shutting tightly, fingers clutching his hair, but after a moment she reopened her eyes and the words just kept spilling out. "Sometimes I have to watch you die over and over and _over_ again, and believe me if I could stop it I would but I can never do anything no matter how hard I try. And those few times that I can, that I can move just a little, I try to reach out to you but you just turn to dust right in front of me, _dust_." Her voice cracked on the word. "And you're gone forever. Just like that. And Cloud I know it sounds stupid but I'm so scared that someday I'm gonna wake up and you'll be...you'll really be..."

She couldn't form the word, an ugly word like _gone_ or _dead_. She lowered her head onto his shoulder, a soft sob choking out of her, and Cloud forgot how breathing worked as her long exposed legs wrapped around his waist and her bare feet locked behind him. Her arms were tight around his neck, her body pressed to his. There was something childish about it all. Like she felt that if she just held onto him tight enough he would never be gone or dead or turn to dust, not ever.

It chilled him that he'd made Tifa feel like that. Like she had to force him to stay or else one day he'd just up and disappear forever. He slid one hand up her back until it was entangled in her wet hair, turned his face slightly into the dark tresses. His eyes closed as he contemplated the right words to say, the words to put her mind at ease.

"I'm not going anywhere," he finally murmured next to her ear. "I'm right here."

A few seconds passed before she drew her head away to look into his eyes. She scrutinized them, like she wasn't convinced, like he could be lying and might just vanish into the air after all. Cloud felt her shift in his arms. He let his hands settle on her waist as she lowered herself to stand, her body and legs momentarily sliding against him before her feet alighted on the floor. She took a small step back with her arms still on his shoulders, her gaze staying on his face, her expression unreadable. His grip slackened as he realized that what he said wasn't enough. Words were never enough.

She was moving away. Her arms dropped dejectedly from his shoulders and she turned from him and he let her go even though he was getting damn sick of letting her go. She stepped toward the end of her bed, fell back with her arms outstretched and her gaze fixed on the ceiling. A brief silence passed between them. It was Tifa who broke it, her voice soft.

"Promise me, Cloud."

He blinked, not understanding, not able to say anything but a faint "What?"

"That you're here," she responded, more forcefully this time. "That you won't leave like that again."

Cloud just stood there for a moment. Finally, he began to step toward her, moving slowly but deliberately until his knee slid up onto the edge of the bed and he was hovering over her, his hands placed on either side of her on the covers. He could almost feel her body tense beneath him as her breath caught and the haze in her eyes disappeared altogether. He gazed down at her, really _looking_ at her because he couldn't remember the last time he did, looked at her lying there under him with her white satin skin and her dark chocolate hair and her red wine eyes, all those sweet and wild layers of shower smells wafting off of her. He leaned down slow until his lips just barely skimmed hers - light as air. Both of them inhaled.

"I'm not going anywhere," he repeated in a sincere whisper. And he promised her. Promised with the way his mouth started to move against hers very carefully and very softly, promised with the hand that quietly slipped down her side to rest on her hip and with the way he shifted to be closer to her, promised with the way he paused after a few moments not because he wanted to but just to breathe in the smell of her again and because he wasn't quite sure if this was the way she wanted him to promise.

But then she accepted it. Before he could even take in a full breath, her arms reached up to wrap around his neck and pull him back to her, her lips meeting his with more acceptance and fierceness and _want_ than he'd dared to expect. He gave in to her, put every ounce of his being into showing her that he was right here, that he really wasn't going anywhere, that he sure as hell didn't want to be anywhere but here. His hand drifted down from her hip, the skin of her leg smooth and warm beneath his fingers as he moved completely onto the bed so they could be closer still. Suddenly all he was conscious of was her hands - hands running through his hair, hands tenderly placed on the sides of his face, one of them idly fingering the piercing in his ear. He felt her shiver and briefly stop to take in air as his own hand glided upwards slowly, leisurely, finally coming to rest on the skin of her slim waist under her shirt where he could feel her stomach rising and falling with each breath.

Her hands again. Hands moving down his neck, fingers like feathers as they traced tendons and scars, one hand slipping beneath his shirt to the skin of his chest and pausing over his heart, where she could feel its quickened beat against her palm as it promised her that he was here. She sighed into his mouth.

"Tifa," he murmured, reluctantly pulling away to look at her, their labored breathing the only sound in the darkness. Her hands slid up to the sides of his face once more as she gazed at him, her eyes searching his features not because she thought he might vanish but because she simply wanted to look at him. He spoke again, his voice quiet, strained.

"Sleep."

She didn't look happy to hear that. Cloud wasn't happy to hear it either, didn't want to stop. But she was so tired; he could see it in those dark circles that he'd put under her eyes. She refused to move, her hands stubbornly remaining on his face as she held him in a penetrating stare with those red wine eyes. _Sleep _was just a word. Cloud knew by now that words weren't enough for Tifa.

He carefully shifted off of her, the mattress squeaking softly as he sat beside her. A smile played across her lips when she heard him removing his boots, listened to each of them drop to the floor with a muted _thud_. She pulled the covers over herself and rested her head on the pillow; he did the same, lightly placing his hands on her waist. She twined her feet with his. They moved closer, savoring the warmth of each other, savoring that they knew the other would be right in front of them when they woke up. He brushed her hair out of her face, watched as her eyelids began to drift closed.

"Cloud," she breathed. He blinked.

"Mm?"

"Thank you."

His lips twitched into a small smile. He rested his forehead against hers as her eyes closed completely.

"There's something else you can do to thank me."

She was almost asleep. She made a faint sound of acknowledgment to show that she'd heard him.

"Don't dream something bad," he murmured, watching her lips part as her breathing evened. "Dream something sweet for me. Please."

He wasn't sure if she'd heard him, but soon his own eyes began to close as her gentle breathing lulled him to sleep.

And for once, nothing but sweet dreams awaited them.


End file.
